Born to Run
by Selene47
Summary: My name is Zack Raphael. I am a half vampaneze, I killed my brother, and I come from the future. A fanfic based around my OC, Zack. Sequel to the fanfics book 13 and 14, which are too big to put on here.
1. Prologue

**A/N: This is a sequel to two other fanfictions I co-wrote, but you don't need to have read them first, because the main things that happened are explained in the prologue. But if you want to read them, it will definately help when reading this. They can be found on Leila's Vampire Movie Forum. They're in forum format, with our convos of what's going to happen so there will be lots of spoilers. An easier option is to email me, and I'll send you the Word document version, which is a lot easier to read and has far less pages. It is also changed round, edited and spell-checked, and a lot of it has been cut out so it makes more sense.  
Please please read them! It took us almost exactly a year to write both books, and we put a lot of thought and planning into it. I think all of us that wrote them think they nearly count as part of the Saga, and wish that they did.**

**P.s. They are classed as a sequel, but really they are as if Darren never went back in time and changed everything. At the beginning of Book 13, Darren has been missing for a year, that is all.**

**The Saga of Darren Shan, characters etc. - (c) to Darren Shan.  
Book 13 / 14 / BtR / Zack, Isabella, Kate, Nimrod, Alucard, Kral, Damien and Dawn etc. etc. etc. - (c) to me, Chloe, Rachael, Connor, Roseanna, Imogen, etc. etc. etc.**

Prologue:

My name is Zackary Raphael, and there are three things you need to know about me: I am a half-Vampaneze. I killed my brother. And I come from the future. That's my story; it began with me running, and because of it I will be running until the day I die, into battle and away from the ones I love.

I started as an ordinary human, of course, with a normal childhood and normal friends. My mother died giving birth to my twin and me, but I loved my dad, and he and my brother were the only family I ever needed.

My brother Brendan, who I loved, and who I killed, driven mad by the craving blood that comes from my Vampaneze half. That was where my normal life ended, and my life on the run began. I ran for almost a year, moving from town to town, never staying in one place for too long. And wherever I went, I left a trail of corpses and the stain of blood.

That was when he found me. Nimrod, a Vampire newly promoted to Princehood to compensate for the sudden loss of the legendary Darren Shan. He, along with an ally Vampaneze named Alucard, had undertaken the task of training Darius Shan – Darren's nephew, and son of his arch enemy, the Vampaneze Lord, Steve Leopard. He explained the reason for my bloodlust, and the history of both Vampire and Vampaneze. The Vampaneze were descended from the first group of Vampires who broke of from the rest of the clan, claiming that to leave humans alive after feeding was cowardly, and disrespectful for both predator and prey. Over the generations, we evolved in such a way that it is impossible for us not to kill. Once we start to rink someone's blood, we can't stop. It's the curse which drove the two clans apart, started the War of the Scars, and ruined my life.

He told me what had happened to the Prince Vancha March; that since neither Darren nor Steve was alive to fulfil Des Tiny's prophecy and become the Lord of the Shadows, the burden had fallen on the last remaining Hunter of the Dusk. Vancha, possessed by the evil nature of the Lord of the Shadows, had stolen the Stone of Blood, that mysterious red stone gifted by Mr. Tiny, which could exactly pinpoint the location of every Vampire on Earth. In the wrong hands, the Stone was a lethal weapon.

Nimrod gave me a message, and sent me to find the group who were looking for Vancha and the Stone of Blood; the police officer Alice Burgess, Little Person Harkat Mulds, and Vampire Prince Mika Ver Leth. Though suspicious at first of a Vampaneze claiming to want to help, they soon realised that they needed all the help they could find in finding Vancha. We travelled far and wide, searching, and found ourselves aided in our quest at every turn by Debbie Hemlock and her friend Kral; he was a Vampaneze whom, for unknown reasons, Debbie shared a telepathic bond with. Tricked, captured, and blooded against her will, Debbie left clues and tracks to allow us to eventually find the Stone, as well as Vancha, and the last battle of the War of the Scars ensued.

Many lives were lost on the square in Debbie's hometown, Vampire and Vampaneze alike. Harkat Mulds sacrificed himself to save Debbie, who Vancha turned his wrath upon after discovering her involvement. Annie Shan, Darren's sister and mother of Darius, was slain by my own hand, because Des Tiny manipulated my need for blood.

Then Evanna, Tiny's daughter, appeared, carrying the twins she gave birth to, one fathered by a Vampire, Vancha March, the other his brother, the Vampaneze Gannen Harst, who Vancha had killed. Vancha looked on the face of his son, and was cured of the evil running through his blood. But Tiny, angry with Evanna and determined not to give us a happy ending, whispered lies in Debbie's mind. And so Vancha was killed.

We won the battle, and the war, but lost one of the finest Vampires who ever lived.

The Stone of Blood was returned to its proper place in Vampire Mountain, and it seemed that, for once, everything would end well. However, less than a year after arriving at the Mountain, my life was turned upside down once more. I was struck by the Purge; the transcendence from half- to full-Vampaneze, which usually only takes place after decades of being blooded. The first stage came and went, and Nimrod came to me and suggested a reason for my quick development.

I was a telepath. Like Des Tiny and his children, like Debbie and Kral…like Nimrod himself. Yet my condition, like Nimrod's, went a step further than that. As well as being able to converse using only our thoughts, but we could control an object's movements, just by thinking about it. And, most dangerous of all, we could bend the flow of time, travelling to the past and future as we wished.

Nimrod took me under his wing and made me his assistant, teaching me how to move small objects using my mind, and we soon realised that my power was stronger than my mentor's; stronger than either of us had thought possible. Evanna came to Nimrod, and warned him not to let me try to time-travel; the consequences could be catastrophic. The sneaky witch knew that by doing this, forbidding me to try, would only make it definitely happen. I went forwards in time, and lost control. My power slipped out of reach, and when I was finally able to stop the flow of time from passing, I woke up to a different world.

The Mountain was completely different; empty and cold, not the bustling, noisy place I knew and loved. I sought out my friends, and what they said stunned me. I had been missing for ten years. Ten years had passed, but to me it seemed like a few minutes. And the Vampire clan was still reeling for a brutal attack on the mountain, which took place a handful of years earlier, and wiped out nearly half the clan. Alice and her adopted son Damien, one of Evanna's twins, had seen some Vampaneze scouting out the Mountain before the attack, and told the first person she saw. Then she and the boy hurried off to find help from other Vampires, away from the Mountain. But the person she told, Debbie, was attacked before she could get the message to the Princes, and had been in a coma since that day. To top it all, the girl I had been forming a relationship with, Isabella, had found a mate, a young Vampire general called Stefan.

Nimrod, who had been searching time itself for me while I was gone, had discovered a secret lab, run by the human puppets of an unknown higher power. In the underground lair, human guinea pigs had been injected with the blood of Vampires and Vampaneze, to mutate them into something that was not human, Vampire or Vampaneze. These creatures had been the ones to ambush the Mountain, at the time of a fortnight-long total eclipse when they could attack with no fear of death.

Worse still, the Stone of Blood we had been so desperate to find had been somehow contaminated; whenever a Vampire or Vampaneze touched it, it would drain them of blood not letting them go until they were dead. This seemed to have something to do with the attack, and, since it had been a gift from Tiny, I suspected the prankster must be behind both problems.

So, accompanied by Kral, who would do anything to save Debbie, and my mentor Nimrod, I travelled back in time five years, to just before the attack – a few days before the eclipse. Then, with the prior warning, we were able to fight off the first wave of genetically modified creatures, and save the Vampire clan.

Then, they stopped. They didn't leave, just sat down and waited, with seemingly no need of sleep of sustenance, be it food or blood. It was as if they were waiting for something, and a few days later, we found out what it was; their master, Des Tiny. He appeared with Evanna and her daughter, Damien's brother Dawn. They escorted us into the Hall of Princes, and when I tried to fight Tiny, to teach him a lesson for what he did to Vampire Mountain, he cast a spell on me using his heart shaped watch. He forced me to bite Isabella, my love. I thought I'd killed her, but at the last moment Tiny broke the spell, and left her weak, almost completely drained of blood, minutes from death.

Only then did he explain what was wrong with the Stone of Blood. It was dying. The Stone had reached the end of its life, and if it wasn't replaced soon, it would continue to take all the blood from anyone who touched it. If nobody touched it, it would simply fade and die. And the twins were the only ones who could save it, and with it, the future of the Vampire clan. Tiny made them stand by the Stone, with Debbie on one side, Kral on the other. The two Vampaneze touched the Stone and joined hands with the children, and then, instead of being drained of blood, Damien and Dawn were transported hundreds of millions of years into the future, to the end of all life.

Apparently, out plans worked. The Vampire and Vampaneze joined forces, and soon any conflict was forgotten, as we merged into a new race, neither Vampire nor Vampaneze, and yet somehow both. But, inevitably, Tiny grew tired of the truce. Instead of trying to rebuild the barriers between the two clans, however, he made our presence known to the public, the thing we had tried so hard to keep from happening. Driven by terror and hate, the human race attacked, and we had no choice but to retaliate. We were greatly outnumbered, but refused to give up. And so, when the last human and the last Vampire died from exhaustion and the grey sand was littered with bodies; when life came to an end, and dragons took over the earth…Mr. Tiny took the brain from a dragon, and sent it back in time with the children. And it became the Stone of Blood, reborn.

But I am a danger to those I love: I almost killed the woman I love, and I have killed so many that I don't trust myself around friends. I left Vampire Mountain without saying goodbye; I ran without looking back, and ended up back where I started.

I am lost in time. Sometimes I wake up drenched in a cold sweat, so sure I'm ten years in the future, in the aftermath of the terrible attack on Vampire Mountain. Other times, when I dream, it's almost as if I'm five years before the assault, trying to stop it from happening. The faces of those I love and those I've killed, or tried to, haunt my days, and plague my nights. I fear not feed, in case I kill again, and animal blood is not enough to sustain me. I risk arrest every time I break into a blood bank, or show my face in public, certain I'm wanted for the murder of my brother among dozens of others.

This is not life, not compared to the one I would have in Vampire Mountain, but it is all I deserve. I've travelled to the future, to the past. I've saved the entire Vampire and Vampaneze community from a crippling defeat, a fate worse than death, but I couldn't save myself.

And nothing I have done matters, because it hasn't happened yet. I ran so far, my path took me back in time, before the attack, before its prevention. Back where I began.

A fresh start; the least any of us deserve.

My name is Zack, and this is my story.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

I jerked awake, gripping the sheets of my tiny bed with trembling hands. The pub room I was staying in was grubby, infested with God-knows-what, and the window was stuck half-open, letting rain splatter over my thin blanket. Not for the first time, I wished I was at home, back in Vampire Mountain, asleep in my hammock (I could never get used o sleeping in a coffin; it felt too much like being dead). I lay in the dark for a few seconds, shivering. I couldn't remember my dream, but whatever it was about had woken me in a cold sweat. My T-shirt was damp and clammy with rain, the closest thing to a wash it had got in weeks.

I had arrived in town late last night, way past midnight. I was all but dead on my feet from walking for days; I had spent the last few nights under the stars, having used up the last of my cash. When I reached the small, dark town, I had staggered into the first lodgings I found, and planned to disappear the moment the owner mentioned money. Luckily, the pub landlord had taken one look at me and bundled me into a back room, with barely a word passing between us. I assumed it was so I wouldn't scare away his other customers; from the passing glance I had, they looked only marginally more respectable than me. With my shaking hands, red-rimmed eyes, and the layer of dirt coating my leather jacket and jeans, he undoubtedly thought I was a junkie in the early stages of withdrawal. In reality, I hadn't fed off a human in almost five months, and the last of my strength was draining fast. If I didn't drink human blood in the next few nights, I wouldn't survive.

A smattering of rain hitting my face woke me from my dark reverie. Grumbling softly to myself, I heaved myself out of bed, an act that would have been effortless for a freshly-fed Vampaneze. Blinking sleep from my eyes, I stumbled across to the window, rested my palms on the frame, and pushed. Nothing happened. Swearing under my breath, I put my whole weight on the frame and heaved; to no avail. I was just about to give up and go back to bed when a movement caught the corner of my eye. I froze.

It was a woman, walking down the road in front of the house opposite. From this distance she looked quite young, no more than twenty years old. She was huddled into her coat to ward off the cold and rain, and her dripping wet blonde hair was plastered to her scalp and hung dejectedly down her back. As I watched, she turned of the main street and cut through an alley between the two houses across from my window. Though it was dark in the alley and my eyes weren't at full strength, my sight was still better than a human's; not only could I still see the girl clearly, but I spotted something lurking in the shadows near the other end of the passage; the dark bulk of another person, hunched over menacingly.

I was into my jeans so fast I only half registered the fact that I was moving, until I suddenly found myself tumbling headfirst through the open window. I tried to grab the ledge, but misjudged it, and suddenly the ground, three storeys below, was hurtling towards me at an alarming speed. Fighting gravity's pull, I concentrated hard and felt myself slowing down. Ten feet from the ground, my somersault out of the window turned into a lazy forwards roll as my descent slowed to a crawl.

"What the…" I breathed, finding myself the right way up, and gripped the wall behind me to stop myself from tilting forwards.

My eye found the girl. She had stopped moving - no, she was walking, but very slowly. Realisation began to dawn. I noticed a man through the upstairs window of a nearby house; he was in the process of removing his tie, but was moving as slowly as the girl in the alley. I glanced at my watch to confirm my suspicions. Just as I thought, it read a quarter to midnight, but it was a full count of five before the second hand clicked forwards.

_I can stop time_, I thought, oddly calm. Perhaps, after becoming a Vampaneze and discovering you can time travel, there really isn't that much that surprises you. _I can manipulate time…_

No sooner had this thought passed through my head, than I began falling at normal speed. I plummeted the ten feet to the ground, before landing cat-like on the balls of my feet and rolling into a standing position. My heart was pounding, my head ringing. I was so caught up in the moment that I almost forgot the reason I had jumped in the first place.

Then I heard her scream.

I leapt into action. I had left my jacket, with the knife inside, in my room, but I wasn't worried. I would probably just have to scare the attacker, make him run away, save the girl - simple. I threw myself into a lurching run and plunged into the dark of the alley.

"Help! Help me, someone!" Came a girl's voice, and my heart went out. I willed my legs to go faster, my fingernails digging so hard into my palms I felt the blood trickle between my fingers. I reached the end of the alley and skidded to a halt; the girl and her assailant were nowhere to be seen.

Then I saw a flash of yellow; the girl's hair as she was dragged around the corner. I gave chase, skidding around the end of the passage, and almost crashed into the scene before me. A man had the blonde girl pinned against a wall, holding a hand over her mouth so she couldn't cry out. She was struggling, but the grip he had on her was too strong. She was holding her bag out of reach, and finally managed to toss it away; it landed near my feet. She must have thought that would get rid of him, but it wasn't what he was after, and he didn't let her go. He didn't look the kind of person to run off if someone like me showed up. I hesitated; in my state, I doubted I would be any use in a fight, but I couldn't just stand back and leave an innocent girl in danger.

"Hey!" I said, but the man paid no attention. He was running his unusually long fingernails across her cheek, and the girl was sobbing in fear, trying to flinch away from his touch.

"Hey!" I repeated, louder this time, and followed through with a thump to the shoulder. That got his attention. Keeping one hand on his victim's throat, h turned his bloodshot gaze on me, and I froze. His eyes weren't just bloodshot, they were blood-red, and the purple tint to his skin was unmistakable.

It was a Vampaneze!


	3. Chapter 2

** The Saga of Darren Shan, characters etc. - (c) to Darren Shan.**

** Book 13 / 14 / BtR / Zack, Isabella, Kate, Nimrod, Alucard, Kral, Damien and Dawn etc. etc. etc. - (c) to me, Chloe, Rachael, Connor, Imogen, etc. etc. etc.**

Chapter 2:

The Vampaneze froze when he saw me, and at once his red eyes began flicking left and right for an escape route. He would be able to smell that I was a half-Vampaneze, but luckily didn't appear to see what state I was in. When he saw I was blocking the only exit, a snarl twisted his lips, and suddenly a knife flashed from inside his coat. I glanced at it, keeping my expression calm. If he attacked, he would finish me off in minutes – but he was unaware of my strength and what I intended to do. He looked quite young, only slightly older than I was, but I knew that was no indication as to his actual age. Even so, he looked unexpectedly unsure with the knife between us, and I used his hesitation to my advantage.

A dozen ideas flicked through my mind; I grabbed the most feasible and bent it into something resembling a plan. Taking a confident step forwards, I addressed the Vampaneze authoritatively.

"I know what you are, and I've alerted my friends to your presence. Put down your weapon, or this place will be crawling with Hunters in a heartbeat."

To punctuate my words, I pushed up the left sleeve of my T-shirt, revealing the tattoo there – two crossed swords. Since the end of the war, it was customary for any Vampire or Vampaneze who were actively trying to bring about a truce to show their loyalty with this mark. It represented the unity of the two clans, and we had become known as the Hunters, because of our role in hunting down the Rebels who refused to make peace. My mentor had thought of and designed the tattoo, and had earned the old-fashioned mark to show he was loyal to both clans - three small scars on his left cheek.

This Vampaneze evidently recognised the design, because he instantly relaxed his stance, dropping his arms to his sides and the knife into my waiting hand. I breathed a silent sigh of relief that my shaky plan had held up.

"Please don't kill me!" He pleaded. His voice had a whiny, slightly nasal quality – or that might just be because I was holding the knife to his throat. Now that his face showed fear, he looked younger than ever, and the purple tinge to his face had paled from his terror. He might be a recently blooded Vampaneze, to young to have seen the horrors of the War of the Scars - or he could be a centuries old veteran, who had killed countless humans just to stay alive.

"Who are you?" I snarled adrenaline coursing through my blood, giving me strength. The Vampaneze's eyes swivelled furiously from me, to his would-be victim, to the freedom behind me.

"My name's Robbie – Robert, I mean. I'm not a rebel – man's gotta eat, you know how it is, surely you –"

"Robbie." He nodded; the knife tip pricked his throat, and a trickle of red-maroon blood disappeared inside the collar of his dirty shirt. "I'm going to let you go – this time. If I _ever_ catch you feeding off innocents, you'll die. You understand?"

He almost nodded, then thought better of it. "Yessir," he finally mumbled. "Thanks…"

I lowered the blade, and the young Vampaneze gulped gratefully. I shot him a look of contempt. "Now get out of my sight."

"Yessir!" He didn't need telling twice. Without trying to get past me and my new knife, he threw himself halfway up the wall behind him. His fingernails crunched into the soft stone of the house behind him, and he scrambled into the shadow.

I took a couple of deep breaths to ward off a sudden dizzy spell – another side-effect of avoiding human blood – and wearily turned to face the girl I'd saved.

She was pretty, and looked younger than she had at a distance, no older than eighteen. Her hair was a dark gold blonde, a shade I'd never seen before. It fell in soft waves past her shoulders, though it was ruffled now, thanks to "Robbie". I realised she was staring at me with a mixture of terror and awe, eyes wide. She looked like she didn't know whether to thank me, or run as fast as possible in the other direction, and I remembered what a state I was in. There were circles of sweat beneath the armpits of my grubby T-shirt, and the bags under eyes set deep in a gaunt face made me look like a ghost, or worse. I turned away, dropping the knife in the gutter. This seemed to wake her from the trance, and she grabbed my shoulder, pulling me to face her with surprising strength for someone so small.

"You…saved me." She said in wonder.

"Um, yeah. Are you OK?" It was a stupid question, but I didn't know what else to say, unused to such avid female attention.

"How can I ever repay you?" It was such a cliché that she grinned sheepishly, and I couldn't help smiling as well. Her eyes were very dark brown, like pools of chocolate.

"Don't worry about it," I managed, though my mouth had gone dry. Her hand was still on my shoulder, and I could feel the warmth through the cotton of my T-shirt.

"Please…let me buy you a drink, at least."

I hesitated. It was a bad idea to get involved, I was sure of that. Even Vampires were advised to steer clear of such complications, and with my situation…I should definitely decline, head back to my room, pack and leave town. Avoid temptation. I should.

On the other hand…I was an outcast. No one at the Mountain would know or care what I got up to or who with. And she was looking at me with those dark eyes…

"All right," I sighed. "One drink."

She beamed; her whole face seemed to light up.

"I'm staying at _The Lamb_." I told her, nodding towards the pub, where my open window was just visible in the dark. "How about I have a shower, and you meet me at the bar in half an hour?"

"Great!" She grinned. My heart gave a painful thump. We began to head back down the alley. "My name's Kate," she added, almost as an afterthought. "Kate Trent."

"Zack. Zack Raphael." I replied. Smiling, she slipped her arm through mine, and I didn't object.

_After all,_ I thought. _What's the worst that could happen?_

Chapter 3:


End file.
